dpaws

Thanks Steve - well, we'll see... I'm not even sure if they will arrive as part of this project - it will all depend on the next couple of days spend moving things about - no doubt with copious chin scratching and glasses of the local Prosecco. As charming as they are the thing I really don't want is the distraction of a "next" project sat in the drawer, begging for my attention every time a seemingly impossible task lies ahead of me on this one! Part of the problem with my working away is losing the creative thread of where i was before I left - this is my motivation for maintaining the thread as I can read back through and bring myself back up to date! Having you guys out there spurs me on too, so thank you all so much for that! It seems that the back retaining wall with low relief buildings on top is coming out and being replaced with more scrubland and trackside interest with chimney tops etc poking up beyond... Right, time to clear the dining table; let the games begin!

Back at last. More post, lots of little bits and bobs and look....!!! Very nice I must say. A higher finish quality than I've seen before with a much thinner shell - easy prey for the Dremel should slicing for semi-low relief be required. I just couldn't resist buying the set and yes, they really do scream out for the latest pair of W4s!! If only Hornby could resolve the pick-up issues with these models... albeit generic with close-spaced industrial 0-4-0Ts I guess... Curiosity led to the placement of the loco - there's sufficient roof clearance through the archway - better still if the rails were sunk into the ground, as they most likely would be of course. These models will sell very well indeed, they offer superb stage entrance for a shunting micro puzzle type layout, very intimate. With a traverser off-scene beyond the archway you could use the inside of the largest building for hidden storage tracks, fed from the same traverser. Now if only they'd release the same but in O gauge... NO.... stop that thought right there!!!

Thoughts on the road Regrettably one has to work to fund boys toys so at present I'm away from home and this little layout that intrigues me so. Before I left I lined up low relief buildings a long the skyline and felt a little disappointed as I remember so many other layouts that follow the same thinking and yet fail to capture the atmosphere of a "real railway". Thankfully life on the road is not devoid of google, and www.davidheyscollection.com has produced some gems... Note the background in these photos, how the foreground blends seamlessly into the mid-ground and on into the background; how the background sets the scene but doesn't distract, like a frame is used to compliment a picture on the wall. I think this is the philosophy I will follow, with a photo back-scene of a small town's roofs and chimney pots just visible above and between the sprawling foliage. Of course Nevard and the like pull this illusion off with alarming regularity but the penny's only just dropped for me. I noted that the experts in loco weathering always refer to real photos to curtail the human preference for patterns and sequences, so it makes perfect sense that a natural background can only be achieved using the same process. Now actually pulling off this illusion is another matter, but if I start from the right point at least I'll have a chance. Enjoy your modelling - I'm so jealous!

Thanks for your encouragement David, it was after losing a close friend that I became determined that building a layout wasn't going to be an item left on my bucket list! I'm digging the canal cameo idea too - I just can't figure out where the canal's going to... Sadly there isn't enough space across the rear culvert for a junction and a pair of lock gates... after all that would have been far too easy!! Next time we're out cruising the many muddy ditches around Birmingham I'll have the camera out ready to capture inspiring cameos. Many of the bridges are so low that you have to lower the exhaust pipe else it'll get knocked off "Picking the lock" is a tricky one; I took a cappuccino in Amsterdam - it works for me on my part of the spectrum!!!!

Ahh like I was, locked in the logic phase; planning is a game of Sudoku with a transportation twist, addictive too! Many of us with the same addiction are also drawn to the collecting side of the hobby, making logical sets of running stock but still unable to tap into the creative side of their character to fulfil the layout dream (often due to a lack of design parameters). The key is finding something or someone that will help pick that lock... Watching Nevard making magic on Tim's superb 4x1 baseboards was the final straw... I've taken up photography since too; there's no stopping me now that I know how! Thanks for your kind comments - I've been researching Das and sand techniques for yards, all of that's still to come... more planning!!

Thanks - Hattons have one of them listed online but no ETA as yet... http://www.hattons.co.uk/337619/Bachmann_Branchline_44_0086_Industrial_Gate_House/StockDetail.aspx only patience... don't they just scream for a grubby W4 Peckett with a tightly coupled 3 plank!! Kind of you David, thanks. I'm fascinated as to how the ideas have evolved as the project has progressed. The CAD's very useful as I'm crap at sketching! It is quite liberating when you move the viewpoint to a platform edge and observe the scene in virtual reality... it all helps my visualisation and has saved me many an hour of wasted modelling of an idea which is always so demoralising...

Just experimenting with a canal running under the plate girder bridge... but to where? Hmmm

For those with similar ideas but less space, the back of the retaining walls is 300mm from the front edge of the board. In my opinion the 1ft depth can work visually but you have to be so clever with the scenery to distract the eye before the realisation dawns. In fact, it's the foreground scenery that will create the illusion of depth. Chris Nevard's a master of this illusion, check out his excellent "Fountain Colliery" here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/sets/72157660416839998 and you'll note how effective the trees and foliage in the foreground really are. Further down the page there are some blog photos of the build in progress which show the scene before these trees arrived and the scene looks quite flat in comparison... Now I've got to think of a way of performing the same trick with only a cm or two of space!!

A brief Sutton's Sulzer indulgence for Ernie... The walling in the foreground is only temporary, I'm debating a row of occupied arches which create the scenic excuse for little street or engineering dioramas in the extreme foreground. From the overhead angle you get a better idea of the actual depth - 350mm internal (13 4/5" ish!). The culvert's bridge arch to the right spans a near background space between the main board and retaining wall that offers good potential for scenery. The access road to the good's yard will climb up into the corner (here to the bottom right corner). To the extreme left of the bridge there's a sneaky siding that will provide for two wagons to be hidden off-stage, "a private siding further up the brachline" Visually it'll be hidden by a building that will join the street and track levels together. The street and low relief terrace buildings will cover a full length hidden stock siding which can be accessed by the traverser - this should cut back on handling the stock at least.

I mocked up the world beyond the track board and clipped on a viewing arch to see how it all works aesthetically... I'm not usually a fan of low relief buildings backed onto the back-scene, but once it's all in place they'll look convincing through the camera where I can soften the focus in the background with a narrower depth of field. The most convincing layouts usually have fairly anonymous backgrounds which are designed to lead the wondering eye back on to the scene. These low relief buildings are simply too detailed to the point of distracting the eye and also too big - I need HO scale on this horizon to force the perspective. Actually the lines of this "Weybourne Road Bridge" do lead the eye nicely into the scene and emphasise the width, and these were wide expanses of land in the heart of suburbia - of course in later years the railway system shrank back and this only served to visually emphasise the void. ( curiosity served - yes, the 13xx would fit through the culvert's archway! )

Oh I wish! That timber's not mine, the link will take you to the proud owner who also sells his traverser designs for O gauge (they're not cheap!). I'm guessing by those photos that he's scaled up to a 16mm rail, but to be honest I don't think there's a need to. I will be taking delivery of another Tim Horn baseboard kit soon, they always turn out neat and create a good first impression & Nevard's a huge fan... The fit tolerances are superb; always spot on. You're very welcome Paul - it left me feeling inspired too, suddenly it all made sense Now sticking to the plan's proving to be the biggest challenge - I'll have to watch it through again to keep me focused. Must confess I'd love to have another siding of two but it'd ruin the aesthetics... I see you're making good progress with yours. You're not alone having many false starts. I hope this time's different for you too.

I stumbled across this inspiring German webpage; http://wp11092200.server-he.de/rbs/sondermodule-0.php His final choice of traverser mechanism is the same as mine - linear rail - and a pair including the blocks are only £28 delivered via a famous auction site... can't go wrong! (A search for "12mm linear rail" will bring up the different length options.) Alignment will be with flush neodymium magnets between the table and the traverser's pit wall. Electric feed will be direct from the mimic panel's switches.

Time to think more about how to control it all - my sketch is inspired by the Megapoints mimic panel system but using rectangular bicolour LEDs. Using the same micro-push buttons for the isolated sections would be neat but it would mean an extra relay board and power supply etc - it'd be far simpler to use a simple latching DPST... if only I could find a mini version; 8mm dia's the smallest I've found so far... The control board does mention route setting capabilities but I've yet to work out if this is only via a DCC command or also via push button trigger - the latter could be very useful. The turnout motors are numbered with identical colours indicating the possibility of linking their motions together via the onboard switch options.

Lots happening behind the scenes, lots of boxes have arrived in the post, including, finally, the C&L fishplates. The track's now laid and wired for DCC with all sections isolated from each other. Droppers for the track feeds, isolated sections and turnout frogs are all through the board - not looking forward to making sense of the underneath! The underlay is 3.2mm Scotchfil Insulation Putty tape, not recommended for the faint-heated... the grab is crazy but it seems so innocuous. Next are the MP5 point motors, which will eventually by driven via this circuit board http://www.modelrailroadcontrolsystems.com/8-channel-dcc-decoder-for-mp-series-switch-motors/ which used the track feed to power it. It's been designed for DCC but I intend to trigger via momentary switch instead - either via Cobalt levers or a Megapoints panel https://megapointscontrollers.com/wp1/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CustomMimicBrochure.pdf. This way it's future-proof yet I have old school controls and no ruddy screens!

Just some random thoughts so I don't forget them! I've always liked this backdrop scene, with the raised trackbed and the suburban world continuing down below. Canals and urban mix perfectly, though this type of transfer shed maybe a little OTT full sized but in end relief behind the Hold on a minute - why not reverse the whole thing, add a coal grab on the dock crane and a drop from the trackbed level down to a canal in the foreground (the station platform's now at the back). With a backdrop of a glazed but essentially flat large industrial mill / warehouse (e.g. Scalescenes, as in the photo above) but open at the back so that you can look through one of the mill windows or peer over the roof top to watch the trains below. That forced perspective should make the scenery more convincing too.

...and the answer was 4.5... I went 5 in the end - on reflection it's maybe a tad short but it'll do just fine, after all, it's the thought that counts! It's probably too close to the opposing fork too, but tuff 'as I need the siding to hold more than a solitary shunter's wagon. It works though, I surprised myself! When they arrive the fishplates will line up the rails just nicely. TIP: For those intricate jobs that scare you stupid try wearing two pairs of your glasses at the same time and grab a daylight rated photo studio light - at x6 magnification under a false sun it all becomes bigger than O gauge and so everything's so much easier ( Apart from don't get caught wearing both pairs at once by a tweenage daughter with an Instagram account ) EDIT: I went back and rebuilt it with only 4 missing sleepers as it was bugging me, swapped the operation rod over too. Looks much better now, I slept well!)

I do like the "Baby Warship"; a runt of the early diesels, very photogenic. One day I'll find the courage to weather her up. I looked again at the canal photo... I suppose one could run alongside the long siding - raise the whole trackbed section up to give depth to the diorama... There are no trap point equivalents in the Tillig Elite track range but I could slice up a standard RH turnout and hash up something half reasonable... I wouldn't waste a servo motor on it's operation anyway so only glue and patience required - thankfully the main rails aren't joggled to accept the blades so I may just get away with it. UPDATE: The madness has started... and I'm very grateful for the precision of the Proxxon for this sort of a job. The point blade is a single piece and appears to slide under regular sleeper chairs so I'm wondering if I can extract a length of normal rail from the adjoining piece and replace it with the single blade... we'll see... I'm wading deeper out of my depth, in blissful ignorance! QUESTION: What do you think? How many chairs shorter from the righthand end would you trim the nearest rail to curve away convincingly as a trap? I think I'll chop three, maybe four... no, three... oh hell, stress! Buona Domenica - have a good Sunday!

It took a couple of attempts but eventually I got the platform clearances sussed... that GRC&W parcel's railcar's a big old girl on a 4x1 layout and that's before having tail traffic along for the ride!! I had a play to see how it all feels once populated with stock; the Sulzer has five coal wagons held in the longest siding and the bay can comfortably hold a trio of box wagons, or the railcar of course. It's doubtful that I'll diversify the stock with passenger workings so we can assume that the station's just closed but for now at least the goods yard remains busy. For the Inglenook shunting puzzle principle to work I need the other three wagon siding to be off-scene, further up the branch-line beyond the platform. The "loco plus three" headshunt is served by the traverser road (228mm) plus a 140mm drop-down stub siding on the other side - though that will make more sense once I've redone the baseboard CAD mock-up. It's doubtful that I'll include passenger workings so it's safe to assume that the station's just closed but for now at least the goods yard remains busy... By running the green diesels on the branch-line I can push the date a little further to the mid 60's by which time the Engineering Dept. have commandeered the goods facilities and stable a couple of their steam locos at the head of the long siding before an overhead hoist with the yard beyond holding the occasional piece of the department's permanent way stock. Not quite sure where the coal comes into it yet, but I can have through traffic albeit between 30cm loco lifts arranged off scene at either end. The ex-Nobo board that everything's sat on at present will sit on top of the baseboard top board; this give me some flexibility to change the proportion of foreground to background at this early stage without having to re-lay everything just to see how it might look. So far so good... it's rather fortunately that slowly does it!

Thanks Scott - yes it's all feeling good so far, it was a very constructive day. Three steps forward and two back a few times but overall I'm happy. The only good thing about waiting for things in the Italian poste is that you have loads of time on your hands so you may as well be fastidious with every detail just to keep you busy. I think that's the difference between a "that's nice" and an "oh wow" reaction. I'm quite excited for the industrial style courtyard for goods with the tracks sunk in level and a yard crane - and that canopy is wonderful.... Sadly I doubt that the large double doors under the stairs will be box wagon sized - would have looked great with a pair of sunken rails disappearing under the door... The smallest building would make a great weigh-bridge office too, but it's that peek-a.boo through the arch that's switched me on. I still think I can get away with double-sided viewing too... I'm thinking about the control panel etc above the traverser and hidden out of view from the scenic part behind low relief or a "background flat" forced perspective collage - sounds easy, likely impossible but we'll give it a shot! Controlling from the traverser end leaves both sides free from viewing when it's set up running lengthways in the centre of our narrowboat. (this isn't our boat although the layout's similar - anyway, you get the idea, the layout would sit on the table)

A happy day! My girls are out and have their own money, Radio Paradise is streaming without dropouts and there's plenty good coffee on the stove! Finally a full day lost in railway land... Well, the track's down for the first time. I gave up with hot glue as it drove me mad in the end. I'd found a bargain cork Nobo board which has 1mm of almost velvety fine cork with 9mm of soft block-board stuck to it and it works out just fine for pinning the track. Obviously there are no droppers soldered up just yet as this was about trimming the track pieces and fitting it all together. Speaking of which, I've decided no fishplates, not the conventional type anyway, I'll be using the C&L fine scale type which slide either side but not underneath the rail. I found that the end sleeper had no chairs to allow for a conventional fishplate to slide onto the bottom flange. Any tension in the rails and the rail ends straighten and this creates kinks between adjoining pieces of track. To resolve this I've used a short length of fully webbed sleepering from a spare piece of "fixed track" instead to hold the rail ends in place and butted up together for now until the fishplates arrive in the post one day. Worth mentioning that their lengths of flexi repeat this sleepering style periodically; I've cut them out and slid the others up to fill the gap instead, it looks much better to my eyes. The large radius turnout is a piece of art; all have a little flex built into them so you can transition into the curves quite gracefully. With this in mind I swapped out the remaining smaller radius RH for a semi-flexy Y turnout which opens out to around a 1000mm radius and that's the minimum now. The traverser will be on the mainboard and will be positioned behind the tunnel's portals. The canal diorama was a beauty but the siding's just not long enough to do the scene justice, so it's now a short siding much in need of a trap point! Whilst googling a new photo took my eyes, that of a due out soon range of industrial buildings; I want to look through that archway and see the bay platform with my camera's lens. I reckon that canopy could keep my 08 dry too, and that'd look cute! If you chopped all of the larger structures in half you'd have a decent semi-low relief backscene!

E55012 hauling a tail load, 31/10/16. Ifan Huws Quite obviously staged given the date, but authentic I'm sure and quite charming no doubt! I wonder what happened to the exhaust pipes, didn't a pair run vertically either side of the centre window panel? I confess I'm no dmu buff! EDIT: Solved! Must be at one end only... duh! E55012 stands at Wolsingham, operating one of the first reintroduced heritage services on the Weardale line, 28/6/14. Ian Dobson

We are blessed to have google! Lot's of useful "tail traffic" info discovered here: http://www.railcar.co.uk/topic/tail-loads/ "I vaguely recall some ballasting being undertaken on the coast using catfish (ZEV) or dogfish (ZFV) hauled by DPUs" now wouldn't that set the tongues wagging at a show!

http://www.barham-kent.org.uk/room_84_show/R84S%20Duty%20List%20TailTraffic.htm The duties of the Class 4 Clark - that's me, the fat controller - would be determined by either the Inglenook card and dice selection system or the waybill method of train selection, depending in which mode the layout's being operated in. Could be a healthy ritual to adopt, solving an Inglenook conundrum over the morning Moka onboard, kickstarting the grey matter for the day ahead. I wonder if I could get away with a glass top for the cabinet and then introduce the layout in situ as a breakfast table to SWMBO...

One can imagine a railcar slowly pulling into it's nose into view from stage right, stopping (dcc doors slamming, whistles blown, starter signal arm drops etc) then continuing on west to reveal a wagon in tow and going off-scene stage left, only to re-appear reversing into the bay to drop off and then continue back to off-stage left to "further along the branch"....

That's the stuff, nice name - "tail traffic" - and what a perfect list for an "Inglenook" shunting session with a bay platform / goods dock. Armed with the new phrase I just found this from the Stationmaster: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/592-mixed-trains-and-tail-traffic/?p=3832 Yes, I remembered the XP part which I remember on the side of my Conflats - I'd forgotten about the brakes... Strange how just one photo can be the missing piece of a jigsaw previously unknown!